Windows 7 as an wi-fi access point

In order to use the wireless Hosted Network feature, your wireless adapter must be using drivers certified for Windows 7. If Windows detects a supported adapter, it will automatically add a connection to the Network Connections window, named Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter, such as Figure shows. If multiple supported-adapters exist, Windows will automatically choose the one to use for the wireless Hosted Network.

Basically there is no native GUI to do all this, so you have to use command prompt to do all this. Here is what you need to do. 

Step 1: Run cmd.exe as administrator .

Step 2: Type the following prompt:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=himmatAP key=hello123
This configures a Wireless Lan network with SSID “himmatAP” and protected with the key“hello123”

This will create the required “Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport adapter” and also set up your hostednetwork.

Step 3: 
You may now setup Internet Connection Sharing or Network Bridging for this newly found adapter. All this is onetime setting.

Open the virtual miniport wifi adapter:

In the sharing option enable Internet sharing on your internet connected network card.

that is right-click the network adapter that’s connected to the Internet and select Properties. Then select the Sharing tab, check the Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection, choose the Hosted Network Connection from the drop-down listbox, and click OK. See Figure for an example.

Step 4:

What is left now is to start the hosted network. 

The command to start the hostednetwork is “netsh wlan start hostednetwork”

The command to stop the hostednetwork is “netsh wlan stop hostednetwork”

and it needs to be run as adminstrator. Since you will have to start/stop the hostednetwork every time you start/stop your computer, I would advice you to create desktop shortcuts for there commands and set them to run as administrator.

Right click on the desktop to create shortcut:

In the box Type the location of item : Copy/Paste netsh wlan start hostednetwork

then click next type the shortcut name as “Start hostednetork” 

In the same way create a shortcut to “Stophostnetwork”

 

These devices are known to be compatible:

• Atheros AR5005GS (as in the TP-Link TL-WN651G)
• Atheros AR5007EG with 8.0.0.238 firmware
• Broadcom 4310-series (in many Dell laptops)
• D-link AirPlus G DWL-G510 Wireless PCI Adapter (driver version 3.0.1.0)
• Intel 5100/5300 (with latest drivers from Intel’s site, version 13.0.0.107, 64bit systems only)
• Ralink RT2870 (in many 802.11n USB dongles)
• Realtek RTL8187SE (with the drivers that came with Windows 7)
• Realtek RTL8192u with 1370(Beta)

These older devices are known to be incompatible

• Atheros AR9285 (likely others too)
• Belkin Wireless G MIMO devices (as of version 3.1.2.0)
• Broadcom 4320-series (in many Dell laptops)
• D-Link AirPlus G DWL-G122
• Gigabyte GA-WPKG 802.11g
• Intel 5100/5300 on 32 bit systems
• Intel 3945/4965,2200BG (most Intel cards, unfortunately)
• Mac Book Builtin Broadcom devices
• Realtek RTL8187 (like in older 802.11bg USB dongles)
• Zydas ZD1211 (also in 802.11bg USB dongles)